Airplane Acne

East-west airplane travel is much more apt to cause acne breakouts in women than north-south travel, so let’s figure this one out. First of all, any kind of traveling can be a little stressful but, in particular, when you’re flying east-west, you’re crossing multiple time zones, and that means, at a certain point, your internal clock has to be reset. That’s very stressful to your body. Your body deals with stress by secreting cortisone from your adrenal gland, but every time the adrenal gland makes some cortisone, it also leaks a little bit of male hormone, androgen out at the same time. Now, in men who have normally high levels of male hormone, that little bit of extra male hormone doesn’t make any difference. But, in women who normally have very low levels of male hormone, that extra little bit of male hormone makes a big difference. This is important because the chief determinant of what makes your oil glands, your sebaceous glands, make oil, is male hormone and that’s the first step in causing acne breakouts, so if you’re flying east-west for this holiday or any other holiday, while there isn’t any way that you can absolutely prevent breakouts, if you’re prone to breakouts, make sure you take your acne medicines with you and make sure they’re in small containers so the TSA doesn’t take them away.

As bizarre as this may sound, it's common for women to have acne breakouts when traveling east-west (but not north-south). Dr. Schultz explains this phenomenon.